


The Letters From No One

by iam93percentstardust



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animagus, Child Neglect, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, McGonagall gets angry, Revenge, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-11-07 18:33:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11064741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iam93percentstardust/pseuds/iam93percentstardust
Summary: Minerva McGonagall never agreed with leaving Harry Potter on the Dursleys’ front step and she certainly never agreed with their treatment of Harry. But now, she can finally get her revenge.





	The Letters From No One

Every once in a while, there were days in which Minerva McGonagall wanted to quit. It wasn’t often- one too many Marauders pranks, a plague which swept the castle, another family dead to Voldemort’s attacks- but it did happen. But the one day that caused Minerva to want to quit more than anything was the day that Albus told her that he was leaving the infant Harry Potter with the Dursleys.

She had fought hard against the forced adoption. She had spent all day watching the Dursleys to determine what sort of Muggles they were. They were the worst sort: vile and cruel.

Leave Harry Potter with them? She couldn’t condone it.

It wasn’t just that they would neglect Harry. They would abuse him, make him miserable. Minerva knew from her conversations with Lily that Petunia despised all things magic. She just knew that the Dursleys would try to stamp the magic out of Harry.

But Dumbledore had insisted and that was that.

As the years passed, Minerva would spend the school holidays in her Animagus form. She’d travel to Privet Drive and would spend countless hours consoling the small boy- at least, as much as a cat could console. Harry confided in her, telling her that Aunt Petunia had hit him with a frying pan for burning the bacon or that Dudley had tried to stuff his head down the toilet or that Uncle Vernon had locked him in his cupboard for three weeks.

A cupboard. They kept the boy in a cupboard.

Minerva grew ever angrier at the mistreatment of Harry. But now, Harry’s eleventh birthday was approaching and she knew exactly what to do for all those years of neglectful abuse.

Traditionally, Hogwarts letters were sent to children from magical families on their eleventh birthday. Minerva had something different planned for Harry.

* * *

 

Monday morning dawned bright and early at the Dursley house. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and a horrible smell was coming from a pot in the kitchen. Aunt Petunia was dying some of Dudley’s old clothes gray so that Harry would have his school uniform.

As per usual, Uncle Vernon forced Harry to get the mail- usual threat of violence- but this time it was different.

Harry was just beginning to open his first-ever letter when Dudley exclaimed, “Dad! Dad, Harry’s got something!”

Uncle Vernon, in shock that his nephew would ever actually receive something from anyone, ripped the letter out of Harry’s hands. Ignoring Harry’s furious protests, he turned the letter over to see the Hogwarts seal stamped on it. He glanced at the envelope only to read Harry’s cupboard. In seconds, he was grayer than porridge.

He threw both Harry and Dudley out of the room and began to pace. Petunia had sunk into a chair on the verge of fainting.

“Vernon, look at the address,” she pointed out. “How could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don’t think they’re watching us?”

Vernon was not a naturally paranoid person but his innate fear and distrust of magic led him to say, “Watching- spying- might be following us.”

“But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don’t want-”

On the one hand, Vernon thought, replying to them might be the best way to go. They would know for certain that Harry was not to become a wizard. But on the other hand, what if Harry figured out that he had written back? What if he figured out why someone was writing him? No, best just to ignore the letter. They’d leave it alone soon enough.

“No. No, we’ll ignore it. If they don’t get an answer- yes, that’s best- we won’t do anything.”

“But-”

“I’m not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn’t we swear when we took him in we’d stamp out that dangerous nonsense?”

He decided that day that they would move Harry from his cupboard to Dudley’s second bedroom. That evening, a tabby cat with unusual markings around its eyes visited Harry in his new room.

* * *

 Tuesday morning dawned. Vernon wasn’t entirely certain that there wouldn’t be another letter addressed to Harry. More than that, he wasn’t certain that Harry wouldn’t just open the letter in the hall if he made Harry get it.

Instead, he asked for Dudley to get it.

But Dudley yelled from the front hall, “There’s another one! _Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive_ -”

Vernon and Petunia exchanged horrified looks. Then he leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry sprinting behind him. Vernon was successful, however, and he emerged clutching Harry’s letter. This time, he saw the dangerous light in Harry’s eyes.

He was sure that the folks from Hogwarts would try again next morning and he was just as sure that Harry would try to get the letters first. Well, then, there was only one thing left to do. He would have to make sure that Harry didn’t get there first and there was only one way to do that. 

* * *

 

He would have to sleep in the front hall. Unfortunately, Vernon didn’t count on Harry’s determination to receive his letters. Instead of the boy watching where he was going, he trod right over Vernon’s face. Woken by a horrible pain in his left cheek, Vernon bellowed in pain.

After shouting at Harry for a good long while, he ordered the boy to make him a cup of tea. While Harry was out of the kitchen, the morning post arrived. There were three letters addressed to Harry. He waited until Harry had returned before shredding them into pieces.

That was it then.

There was nothing else to do but to stay home and to ensure that no more letters could be delivered. He was rather frightened by the idea that the senders hadn’t given up after any response from Harry. But, he reasoned, if they couldn’t deliver the letters then perhaps they would just give up. Yes, to his mind, that made perfect sense. He told Petunia so when she delivered him lunch. After all, the best way to ensure that the letters couldn’t be delivered was to stay home and nail the letterbox shut.

* * *

 

Standing outside the Dursley house, Minerva smiled at the activity going on inside. She knew how Vernon’s mind worked. She’d been studying the family for ages. And she knew that the Dursleys, after an unsuccessful attempt at ignoring the letters, would now try to ensure that they simply couldn’t be delivered.

Not that the attempt would work.

With a flick of her tail, she disappeared.

* * *

 

The next morning, twelve letters arrived for Harry. As the letterbox had been nailed shut, they were pushed through the cracks under the door and through the small slots on the side.

Vernon and Petunia both were furious. Frankly, they were a little nervous as well. Nailing the letterbox had seemed like such a smart idea at the time. But if the unknown senders were determined to reach Harry and were willing to go to such lengths to do so, then they weren’t sure what else to try.

Again, Vernon stayed home from work. All day, the neighbors could hear the sounds of hammering coming from inside Number Four, Privet Drive. In fact, Vernon was boarding up all the cracks around the doors in the house. Both he and Petunia were jumpy at the slightest of noises. Even Dudley, typically oblivious, had noticed that something strange was going on.

He was confused and bad-tempered. This made him get rather physical so, rather than staying in his bedroom (Dudley had a key), Harry locked himself back in the cupboard under the stairs.

* * *

 

It was time, Minerva thought, to up the ante. She could choose to simply force the letters through the downstairs windows. Even the upstairs windows were fair game. But, it wasn’t quite as nerve-wracking. To her, it simply wasn’t as fun.

She glanced around the neighborhood and saw her answer sitting plainly in Mrs. Figg’s grocery cart. After all, a carton of eggs was perfectly harmless, wasn’t it?

* * *

 

There were terrified yells coming from the Dursley house on Saturday morning. No less than twenty-four letters to Harry had made their way inside the house. But they were not forced through the windows or sitting on the doormat.

No, they had been handed to Petunia personally in two cartons of eggs. When she’d gone to crack the eggs for the morning’s breakfast, there she had found a letter addressed to Harry. She had opened each egg, finding that each one, instead of containing a yolk, held a letter for Harry.

Vernon spent most of the morning making phone calls to the post office, trying to find someone to complain to. No one particularly wanted to listen to him and, honestly, the whole affair was rather funny. They kept making grand apologies and shuffling him off to the next person who might be able to help. After one clerk suggested that he simply let the addressee open the letter, Vernon hung up.

Petunia spent most of the morning shredding the letters in her food mixer.

* * *

 

As there was no post on Sundays, there were no letters waiting for the Dursleys when they awoke. Vernon reminded them happily of this fact when they all sat down at the breakfast table.

“No post on Sundays,” he declared, spreading jam on his newspapers. “No damn letters today-”

Something whizzed down the kitchen table and clipped him on the head. In the next moment, another thirty or forty letters burst out of the fireplace like they had just been waiting for Vernon to comment on their absence. The Dursley screamed and ducked under the table but Harry leapt into the air in an attempt to catch one finally.

Vernon took one look at Harry and seized him around the middle, throwing him into the hall. Petunia and Dudley followed closely behind. Gasping for air, Vernon thrust the door shut.

“That does it,” he said, trying to sound calm but failing miserably. “I want you all back here in five minutes, ready to leave. We’re going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!”

Ten minutes later, they were in the car, heading away from the possessed house. Dudley complained loudly about the fact that his father had hit him for trying to bring his computer and television. After his father turned around, nearly crashing the car, to hit him again, he subsided into sniffles.

They drove and they drove and they drove. No one was willing to ask where they were going. Vernon kept glancing in the rear mirror in an attempt to spot someone in a funny-looking cloak following them. Every time he saw someone suspicious, he would yank the car around and drive in the opposite direction.

Eventually, they pulled into a motel just outside a large city. Harry took ages to fall asleep, wondering if the mysterious person would try again to contact him.

* * *

 

As it turned out, the answer was yes. The owner of the hotel joined them at breakfast the next morning to ask whether they had a Mr. H. Potter with them and to inform them that there were almost a hundred letters for him at the front desk.

Harry tried to grab the letter out of her hands but Vernon knocked him away. “I’ll take them,” he said, trying to sound normal and not like he was fearful in any way. It was difficult to manage.

Petunia and Dudley huddled together. Petunia couldn’t stop thinking about how Hogwarts had managed to find out where Harry was staying now. Vernon had done such a wonderful job of throwing anyone off their tracks, whether normal or wizard. She couldn’t see how they had found them.

Late that night, they stopped on the side of the coast. Way out to sea, there was a rock and a little shack. As it began to pour rain, Vernon explained that they had rented the shack and would be staying there for the night.

It seemed clear that no letters would be reaching them that night.

Then, at midnight on July 31st, the entire shack shuddered as someone knocked to come in.


End file.
